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50 Shades of Shut Up: This week's blogs roundup

This week marked National Adjunct Walkout Day, a day of action in support of job-insecure adjunct professors, some of whom can scarcely afford to fill up their cars in order to get to work. Angela Regnier gives some background on the nomadic lives of so-called 'Road Scholars' -- adjunct faculty members who move from contract to contract; Aalya Ahmad, meanwhile, shares her experience of consistently feeling undervalued as an adjunct.

The battlefield for trans rights is often the public wathroom. This week, the washroom again took centre stage as bill C-729 -- Canada's human rights bill actually designed to protect trans people -- was quietly amended to ban trans people from washrooms and gendered spaces appropriate to their gender identity. Mercedes Allen on this unfortunate story.

Still, though, crossing the gendered line in a public space can mark an often-daunting benchmark in the transition period of a trans person. Xeph Kalma talks of her own experience behind gendered doors.

The 50 Shades of Grey hype has not yet subsided -- which is unfortunate for people, especially women, everywhere. While plenty of female bloggers have been speaking out against this softcore travesty, it's always welcome when a man -- especially a high-profile comedian -- throws his voice into the mix. See what Russell Brand had to say about the mainstreaming of porn and its implications for our intimate relationships.

Also on the hype train this week is the Oscars. Patricia Arquette won Best Supporting Actress for her subtle yet remarkable role in Boyhood. During her acceptance speech, she dared suggest that women in America deserve equal pay -- a statement that launched a thousand thinkpieces. Meghan Murphy tells us why -- surprise! -- Arquette's statement was actually well-meaning and a good thing.

Did you know that Canada is one of the few industrialized countries in the world without a formal, national nutrition assistance program? While our neighbours down South stand in line for food stamps, our food-insecure citizens rely on provincial social assistance programs. While it can be argued that this is a better, less didactic way of doing things, research shows that those who rely on social assistance eat less healthy than those who do not. Why does diet quality follow a socioeconomic gradient? Jesse Bauman explains.

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